Tag Archives: Verizon

nce upon a time I got sick of not having a smartphone. I kept my calendar and task list on my laptop, and when I didn’t have it open, I didn’t know what to do next to make the best use of my time. So, I broke down and got a Motorola DROID from Verizon. Before you ask, I never even considered getting an iPhone, because there is no way I am switching to AT&T. On Verizon, we can get away with having the cheapest plan, because almost everyone we talk to also has Verizon, and let’s be honest, they have the best network. BlackBerry also wasn’t an option, because I hate them. The DROID is the first phone on Verizon that I consider a reasonable alternative to an iPhone. Here is a list of the pros and cons I’ve found so far. I’ll try to keep it updated and hopefully it will be useful to someone looking to buy.

Pros:

Giant screen (bigger than the iPhone)

Integrates well with Gmail (which I use at home and school), and other email sources.

Calendar syncs to Google Calendar, and you can also sync with Outlook (you have to install Google Calendar Sync on your PC if you don’t use Exchange, but if you do, Exchange support is native)

Task list syncs to Google Tasks (use the gTasks app)

Excellent web browsing

Wide array of useful apps (I don’t really care that the iPhone has 100,000 apps, most of them are useless)

Cons:

No voice dialing through Bluetooth. I’ve read that this is coming in a future software update. Unfortunately though, this feature lack is a dealbreaker for some people that make a lot of calls in the car. (I put in a ticket to Motorola on this)

Touch screen can be unresponsive when plugged into a PC via USB. (I put in a ticket to Motorola on this.)

No Flash video support. This is supposedly coming in early 2010. You can still watch YouTube though, because they have published an app.

Limited video support. It can play MPEG4 and H.264, but not anything fun like xvid/divx. I have read that Divx is planning android support soon.

Can’t view email forwarded as attachment

The Android Market place needs a lot of new features to be able to find apps you really want, like sorting by rating, or downloads within searches.